AUGUST
1969
When some members of the Hendersonville community tried to incorporate a city in 1964, the vote failed 1018-163. When Dink Newman led an effort four years later, he scaled back the geographic size of the proposed city and got it passed 53-26.
The people left out of the vote–thus left out of the city–suspected that the city of Hendersonville would simply annex them, a method of incorporating them without giving them a vote. Their fears were realized in late August 1969, when the Hendersonville City Commission voted “to conduct (an) annexation feasibility study for the Greater Hendersonville, Tennessee, area.”
By then the city had already annexed some business sections of Gallatin Road and New Shackle Island Road, creating the city borders in the white area above.
1979
In early August 1979 the Sumner County Board of Education decided to delay the start of schools due to budget problems. The board had taken $400,000 from its reserves to finish the previous school year and was hoping the county commission would cover a $348,000 projected budget short-fall for the coming year.
After the Sumner County Commission refused to give up part of its $2.5 million surplus, the school board voted to delay school opening. When school board members held a parents meeting to explain the situation, the parents turned against the county commission and later packed the commission chamber at the next meeting.
At that meeting, on August 20, commissioners would not agree to provide more funds for schools. The school board responded by instructing Superintendent Benny Bills to find areas to cut, and it decided to open schools on September 4.
1982
In August 1982 Kroger executives received zoning permission to build a new shopping center across Gallatin Road from Hendersonville High School (now Ellis Middle School) along the entrance to Drakes Creek Park. The permission would lead to the company to move its store from Imperial Boulevard, which had opened just seven years earlier.
City Commissioners, concerned about leaving the Imperial Boulevard space empty, expected Kroger to find a tenant. The company did when Bill Crook agreed to move his Food Town grocery store to Imperial Boulevard from Walton Ferry Road.
Kroger build its store and an additional 6,400 square feet adjacent to it. Bill Crook moved to the old Kroger site. And Winn Dixie, the only other grocer east of Drakes Creek, started to feel the impact of Kroger’s nearby competition. Opened since 1976 in Maple Row, Winn Dixie had enjoyed a consumer synergy with K-Mart, located in the same shopping center at the southeastern corner of Gallatin and Indian Lake roads.
Winn Dixie closed in 1987, allowing Bill Crook to move his store from Imperial Boulevard to Maple Row. That store closed in 1990.
1986
In early August 1986, Hendersonville citizens voted to exchange the five city commissioners, their appointed mayor, and the city manager for 12 aldermen and a popularly elected mayor.
That referendum, the third attempt to overhaul the government in the city’s 17-year history, was hailed as a means of eliminating alliances among city leaders, a situation that had been evident as two city managers came and left within three years.
Erskine Ausbrooks Jr., the second of those city managers, went on the lead HOPE, Hendersonville Organization for Political Education. The group had requested the referendum and campaigned for a new charter, enabling Ausbrooks to later become the city’s first full-time mayor.